


A Deal To Ruin You

by Oncer



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, Eventual Fluff, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-31
Updated: 2014-01-31
Packaged: 2018-01-10 18:02:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1162817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oncer/pseuds/Oncer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emma's excited about her wedding. She's engaged to the man she loves and has a daughter she adores. Everything is perfect. Except for when it's not. Killian has to make a choice when his long-lost love returns to him three days before the wedding. Torn, his whole world shatters as he desperately tries to keep everyone happy without hurting either woman. But sometimes deals are just too powerful, and no-one can escape the effects of this one. Multi-chapter fic. Post-Neverland AU in which the rest of the mid-season finale never happened. Storybrooke.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Deal To Ruin You

 

Killian didn’t know what to do. Didn’t know if he should run or cry or scream or all three.

Instead, he blinked. Once, twice; desperately trying to erase the illusion his mind had clearly conjured. Because the woman standing before him could _not_ be real. She could _not_ be alive, not after all this time, all the years of longing and misery and anger.

His Milah was dead. He knew that.

But his heart told him otherwise, pounding painfully in his chest as the woman smiled gently at him.

“Killian, your hand,” she whispered, moving ghostly quiet to reach for his gleaming hook.

Killian watched her, unable to move, afraid that the slightest gust of wind would blow away the beautiful lie.

She tenderly traced his hook, then looked up at him. She smiled and cupped his face. Without realising what he was doing, Killian’s rough hands placed themselves over her soft ones, holding her to him, afraid to let go. So afraid.

“You’re real,” he choked out.

Milah smiled through her tears and nodded,

“Aye, I am. And I’ve been waiting for this moment for a _long_ time, my Killian.”

A sob echoed from the deepest chasm of the pirate’s heart as he held his lost love to his chest, his mind a blur. He swooped his head to kiss her deeply. She responded with an enthusiasm that made him tremble. She tasted like the wildest seas, the fiercest wind.

She was his pirette.

Finally, Killian pulled back to get a good look at her. She moaned at the loss and reached to run her fingers through his hair.

“How?” was all he could say.

“A strange boy. Peter Pan. I made a deal with him long ago, and it, well I’ve never been good at understanding the fine print of things, have I?”

“Pan,” hissed Killian, a fiery storm raging in his cool blue eyes.

Milah looked surprised,

“You know of him then?”

“We’ve met,” he said briefly, “Did he hurt you?”

Milah sighed and pressed her lips to his neck, longing for the solid warmth and erratic heartbeat that she had missed for the past three hundred years. So long. Too long.

“No. My only pain was the anguish I felt being torn from you like that. The pain of my heart.”

Killian’s head swam. All he could think was that the woman he had once thought dead was here, in his arms, pressing her cool lips to his skin. The last time he had seen her, they had been in this very spot. It felt like he had simply woken up from a three hundred year sleep and resumed his life. His life of piracy and adventure and _Milah_.

He kissed her again, slower this time, more gentle.

It was as if time had stopped completely. As if time had never even started. Killian wrapped his arms even tighter around Milah, the ship swaying gently beneath his feet.

_Surely this is heaven_ , he thought blankly as they kissed.

Milah pulled back suddenly and gripped his shoulders painfully. Killian watched her anxiously, her fear radiating.

“Killian, there’s someone behind you.” she whispered.

Suddenly, like a brilliant rush of colour, everything came back to him. He remembered his years of drunken anguish over the woman before him, remembered the centuries that had passed, all the places he’d been, the people he’d met. And the most prominent face that flashed before his eyes?

“Emma,” he whispered, closing his eyes.

What had he done? He was in love with Emma. Milah couldn’t be here.  
“Hook,” spat a voice.

Killian’s eyes flew open. The intruder on his ship was not Emma. It was David. He sent a silent prayer of thanks to a God he didn’t believe in that it wasn’t Emma who had found him. That would hurt her more than anything.

“You have thirty seconds, _mate_.” said David, raising a box of white streamers threateningly.

Killian slowly turned to face David, standing directly before Milah in a half-hearted attempt to hide her.

Even he couldn’t explain this. He knew as well as anyone could that he was completely in the wrong. That nothing he said would change the fiery anger written on the Prince’s face. And worse than that, the utter sadness and disappointment that lay behind the flames.

“I don’t know what to say.”

David threw the box of streamers at his feet and turn to leave, a look of utter disgust on his face.

“I do. I expected better of you. More importantly, Emma expected better of you,” he paused and turned to look back at Killian, who was shaking from head to foot.

“I almost believed that you were a man of honour, Hook. But you’re nothing but a filthy pirate, and you always will be.”

David went from Killian’s sight, leaving the pirate feeling the crushing weight of three hundred years on his shoulders.

“Who’s Emma?” asked Milah, coming around to face Killian, her face no longer a joyful tribute to love.

_Emma_.

Her name sounded wrong coming from Milah’s lips. The two women were too different, they were from different times and realms and lifetimes and they each meant a thousand different things to Killian.

And he loved them both. And they could not co-exist in his heart.

It would tear them both apart.

Killian moved to grab the side of his ship. He felt like he had been used as an oar on a rowboat during the wildest storm, against the strongest waves. He had been turned this way and that, and now all he could do was gasp as his head swam.

“Killian?”

Killian looked at her, his eyes searing with pain. He was lost. So lost.

“Milah,” he whispered, her name a lullaby of love and anguish on his lips.

“Who’s Emma, Killian?”

Killian ran a hand through his hair, his eyes searching wildy, scouring the sea, his ship, his Milah, looking for something, _anything_ , that could anchor him down.

“My fiancee,” he finally answered in a strange voice, almost strangled, completely lost, “We’re getting married in three days time. Our daughter, she was supposed to be the flower girl.”

Milah closed her eyes.

“A daughter?”

“Her name is Arianna,” whispered Killian, his heart pounding even harder at thought of his beautiful little girl. She had let her down most of all. How could he do this to his family? To Milah?

“I know you, Killian. You don’t want the family life, you never did,” sighed Milah, hovering over him. She was smiling gently, her face a strange mixture of sadness and jubilation. “You want the life we dreamed of. A _pirate’s_ life, come now Killian I know you do. But I’m not a monster. I’m not going to tear you from your family here. It’s your choice. You just have to let me know when you’ve made it.”

She stood straight and walked across the deck.

“Where will I find you?” he pleaded after her retreating form.

In the setting sun that enveloped the Jolly Roger in a warm orange glow, Milah paused halfway across the deck and smiled sadly at her lost love.

“Your heart will tell you where. I’ll know you’ve made your decision when I find you there.”


End file.
